Job Losses

While the horses keep raising, the economy keeps stumbling as we here of 63,000 job losses in February. Those numbers tend to get revised, but of course thanks to population growth even small positive numbers amount to a weakening labor market. Jared Bernstein says "I haven’t seen a job report this recessionary since the last recession." The Times article notes that the revisions accompanying the report aren't good either "The government also revised down its estimate for January to a loss of 22,000 jobs — the first decline in four years — and cut in half its estimate for job growth in December."

It's not 100 percent logical, but I get the sense that the worsening economic situation is going to cause people to focus more attention on the fact that "if we lavish an unlimited quantity of resources on Iraq for an indefinite period of time there's some chance that things will improve there" isn't really a policy idea that holds up to cost-benefit analysis. It's all fun and games for a certain establishment set, but I think the average American would rather see the government expend resources on improving his or her life than on trying to save the reputations of the people who got us into this war.